Tuesday 30 March 2010

Marriage at le Troisième âge.

Marriage at le Troisième âge.

You are never too old to do crazy things.
Believe me.


We got married in Key West.
Just seemed like a very good thing to do and it has turned out to be just that.
It started with another building I found that needed saving, in the market square of the small medieval town of Saint Aignan sur Cher, in central France.

I am going to search for a photo of the building as it was when I found it ( because of recent upheavals in life things have got a bit scattered ) it was a complete ruin and had been boarded up for twenty odd years and was covered with fly posters several layers thick. The great sadness was that it filled one side of the lovely old Place de la Paix of Saint Aignan, which is the market square.


It had belonged to an old lady who had several of the buildings in the centre of the town and as far as I can work out she had never maintained any of them and as they fell into disrepair she had just abandoned them. It was considered un-saleable when I saw it. What a challenge! When I find the files of my photos I will be able to give you a better idea of the ambiance of the town, in the interim I suggest you look at the blog of a local friend who is far more eloquent than I. (http://ckenb.blogspot.com/search/label/markets) One day I will tell the tale of its restoration, at present it would be too much to tell.
Suffice it to say after a year or so the square had what I hope people think is an attractive building gracing the south side of the square. Until I find my photos you can see it on the site of the people who bought it off me later that year. (http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p92204)
Because of events, I say no more, it also had me as it’s occupant in a very sad state. I was enjoying drinking myself to death, spending all hours living like those times I can no longer remember in the 60’s with people far too young for my health. I had passed the winter in Panama and bought a caravan with the intention of traversing northern Africa and then heading north to the black sea.
I was single after 45 years of marriage and just a tiny bit lost, but I had a game plan.
What I had not included in my master plan was a sweet little French lady who had bought one of the oldest bars in town as a weekend house on the opposite side of the square.
In my foggy state I also had not realised that my friends in the town had some degree of concern that I was possibly heading in the wrong direction and was therefore completely oblivious of their contrived Sunday lunch in the gardens of the island on the river. I found myself sitting next to my present wife unaware they had told her that as I was English I knew all about gardening and as she was finding her new garden too much to handle I must have appeared a gift.
The truth is I have not a clue about gardening, but that didn’t see too much of a problem because we had decided to get married about two weeks later. I sold the caravan.

http://renovatinghousesinfrance.blogspot.com/


2 comments:

  1. Sounds like a lovely project and an even lovelier woman. I look forward to reading more.

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living in France